Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, Ltd.

Archive for August, 2009

School is almost upon us (my district starts back on Monday) and that means that there will be much less time for reading. Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of reading to do, both for school and pleasure. Here’s a rundown of some books I’ve got going at the moment:

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman: Gaiman is one of my favorite writers, and this was highly recommended to me by my mom and younger brother.  It’s basically Gaiman’s version of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.  Although I got this one primarily for pleasure, I’m seriously considering using it in one of my English classes this year (maybe in both).  On a related note, Gaiman wrote an introduction to a collection of Kipling’s fantasy and horror short stories.  I don’t remember the title, but it was at our local Barnes & Noble.

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines: This was suggested to me by a colleague as a potential book for English II Pre AP.  I’ve read the first chapter, and I can tell already that it will be a hard but compelling read.  I’m almost certainly going to teach it this year.  In a weird coincidence, my wife Jen is going to be reading a play version of it for one of her classes this semester.

The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler: This is an analysis of Joseph Campbell’s comparative mythology for writers.  Not only is it useful for me as a writer, but the “hero’s journey” is actually on our TEKS for English II.

That’s it for now.  I’ll be posting some more about what I read as the year progresses.

When Netflix Movie Streaming works, it is wonderful.  Sure, there’s a lot of really bad stuff in the movie section, but occasionally you come across a movie you might not have rented at the video store or caught on TV that is actually pretty good.  Death of a Ghost Hunter fits somewhere in the middle of the independent movie spectrum, but the next two movies, Dark Rising and Breathing Room, sit solidly on either side of that middle.

Dark Rising is a fantasy flick that, while it has a promising beginning, soon can’t decide what type of movie it wants to be.  It begins with Vincent Vale translating an ancient text late at night.  He is interrupted by his daughter Summer, who can’t sleep.  He takes her back to her room and tells her the stereotypical bedtime story about a beautiful princess who grows up to find her prince, to which Summer precociously replies “Why does a princess need a prince?”  After Summer is asleep, Vincent returns to his text, but he inadvertantly casts a spell when he reads the words aloud.  Woken by the noise Summer runs downstairs into the study, which is flooded with green light, and screams, her father yelling her name.

I thought this beginning part was interesting; I liked the interaction between Vincent and Summer, as well as the hint about Summer’s mother being dead (the ancient text was a gift from her).  The next couple scenes also piqued my interest.  First we see three girls, one of whom is asleep, pull up to a bookstore.  The sleeping girl (Renee) is having a nightmare about another woman being experiment on in an extremely vague way.  The other two girls (Jasmine and Marlene) wake her up.

The third (and final) interesting scene concerns Jason, who is talking about his ex-girlfriend while holding a ring that she had returned to him.  I liked this scene primarily because for a while we don’t see who he’s talking to: he could be talking to himself or a friend.  The reveal of who he’s talking to, and the playout of the rest of the scene, was quite enjoyable, and gave me hopes that this movie could pull off a combination of comedy and fantasy.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the high point of the movie.  I won’t go into the rest of the plot, which just gets convoluted with plot points that are never fully explained (perhaps in hopes of a sequel) and campy scenes (the relationship between Jasmine and Marlene is particularly exploited).  While I do commend this movie for establishing its characters and sticking to them (something recent Syfy Saturday movie Infestation couldn’t do), what it does with those characters is uninteresting.  The camp tends to crowd out the fantastical elements, and none of it is ever very funny past the scene with Jason talking about his ex (Jasmine).  Any plot holes are likely to remain unfilled given the chances of this movie getting a sequel.

On the other hand, I was quite impressed with Breathing Room.  The movie’s basic concept (strangers thrown into a room and forced to play a sadistic game) has become cliche by now (eg. Saw and The Cube), but this movie has a lot going for it.  First, I enjoyed most of the acting; unlike Death of the Ghost Hunter, I didn’t feel like I was watching community theatre actors.  Second, I love what they did with a limited budget (reportedly only $25,000).  They kept the cast small, the movie has exactly one location, and all of the effects were practical.  People not into torture porn like Saw will be pleased to know that, while many of the deaths (and of course there are deaths) are gruesome, they’re not dragged out in excruciating detail; they’re always quick affairs, with the action often taking place in the dark and only the end result revealed.  Like all of these movies, there is a twist, and while it may not be a subtle one, I still kept wondering (even if the end result was in my top list) what was going on.

Finally, there is a style to Breathing Room that I liked a lot, which is the very clean environment and bland, business-like plaques and notes giving the “players” various rules and hints.  The first plaque that main character Tonya (#14) reads, with it’s crisp sans-serif font and friendly manner reminded me of Valve’s videogame Portal.

So, there you have it.  If you’ve been keeping score, I’ve come out slightly ahead in viewing enjoyment in this Netflix Movie Marathon.

While browsing through Netflix on my Xbox 360, I came across Death of a Ghost Hunter.  Although I had never heard of the movie, the title intrigued me, and after reading the synopsis I decided to give it a try.  Death of a Ghost Hunter concerns Carter Simms and her investigation of the Masterson House, where the Masterson family was brutally slaughtered.  The film is shot in a documentary style, with opening and closing notes attempting to establish an air of reality, similar to that of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Blair-Witch Project (which the characters of the film reference at one point).

A movie like this can fall apart very rapidly if it’s not handled right, but overall I enjoyed it.  I’ve always been disappointed by TV shows like Ghost Hunters, because  in the end you never really see anything.  After an episode, there’s still no evidence of a haunting; all you really have is people running around saying, “Did you hear that?” while tinted green by crappy night vision.  What this film does is take that basic reality-show idea and make a movie out of it, and for that it works.

Where the movie doesn’t work quite as well is in the acting and characterization.  For the most part the acting is not good.  It’s not terrible, but everything has an amateur air to it.  To the actors credit they never try to go over the top, but given the documentary feel of the movie, many of the lines are delivered in a “here’s my line” sort of way that clashes with the realistic feel the filmmakers were going for.  A fight scene between Carter and Mary Young (a stereotypical “everyone else is a sinner and going to hell” goody girl) is particularly bad.  Character-wise, there’s not a lot going on.  Carter is supposed to be the skeptic, but she never really displays that skepticism (nor is she given a chance to, as things escalate pretty quickly).  The two other members of her crew (hired by her employer, the current owner of the house) are also fairly bland; the cameraman is a wuss and the news reporter is supposed to be edgy, but their just not interesting.  Mary Young is perhaps the most annoyingly stereotypical character, however.  Her whole self-righteous act comes off extremely cliche.  Granted, it’s supposed to contrast to what happens later in the film, but it’s still cliche.

What makes this movie work for me, despite the acting and some of the lines, is the style.  The opening of the film is done as Carter’s journal entries, with her narration cut with dialogue in the scene.  I was worried that the whole movie would be like this, but the movie transitions into a more natural style once everyone’s in the house.  The build-up of weirdness is handled very well, with the situation getting more creepy all the way to the end.  The ending was also interesting, although I think it went a little too far in explaining things to the audience.

All in all, this movie did a good job of combining its basic components.  While The Blair Witch Project and Ghost Hunters are the most obvious, I think there is also a good bit of Richard Matheson’s Hell House in this as well, especially given the disturbing nature of what went on in the Masterson House.  This would be a good watch for most horror fans.